12 new artists will be joining us for Chaumont-sur-Loire’s 9th art season, which, as every year, will be celebrating the link between art, nature and heritage.
First of all, there’s Sheila Hicks, an American who has lived in France for many years and who will be adorning the Le Fenil Gallery’s walls with the sumptuous colours of a monumental installation, part of a major commission funded by the Centre-Loire Valley Region.
Another major event for 2017: an exhibition by a one-of-a-kind, unclassifiable artist, Sam Szafran, whose passion for nature and plant life is at the origin of work manifesting extraordinary poetic power. His fabulous green arborescences will be there for visitors to admire in the Château’s High Galleries.
2017 will also see the return of the Ghanaian arti El Anatsui, who will be exhibiting a work inspired by the Loire’s traditional gabarres (flat-bottomed barges).
The sculptor Stéphane Guiran will be beautifying the stables'indoor riding arena with a spectacular installation composed of translucent quartz flowers, entitled “Le Nid des Murmures” (Nest of Murmurs).
Sara Favriau will be arranging her gossamer-light huts and sculpted columns in the Bee Barn, while Marie Denis and Karine Bonneval sow their delicate sugar flowers, herbariums and other precious “patiences” in the Château’s private apartments and Donkey Stables.
Andrea Wolfersberger’s cardboard sculptures will be taking possession of the Donkey Stables’ Upper Gallery, while Mâkhi Xenakis exhibits her delicate corollas in the “Cour des Jardiniers” Galleries.
Finally, in line with the theme selected for the 2017 International Garden Festival, which exalts “flower power”, two creators, both of them digital virtuosos, will present us with fantastic worlds to explore: Miguel Chevalier in the Historical Grounds, with his work “In Out-Paradis Artificiels”, and Davide Quayola in the Lower Le Fenil Gallery, with his fascinating “Summer Gardens”, the result of a Chaumont-sur-Loire residency. And last but by no means least, the British artist Rebecca Louise Law will be suspending thousands of natural flowers beneath the stables’ awning, complementing 2017’s glass, sugar and virtual flowers and lending a scent of Eden to the new art season.
